?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,000 - $ 3,000
DESIGNER UNKNOWN COMRADES IN ARMS. Circa 1941. 40x60 inches, 101 1/2x152 1/2 cm. J. Weiner LTD., London. Condition B+: minor losses, abrasions and restoration along vertical and horizontal folds. Traditional Cold War conditioning makes this a very hard image to understand by contemporary standards. But during the Second World War a common enemy forged an unexpected alliance between Britain and Russia. When Germany invaded the Soviet Union in the early morning hours of June 22, 1941, in clear disregard of the two country's non-aggression pact of 1939, the United Kingdom was quick to respond. Speaking to Parliament that same evening, Winston Churchill, an avowed anti-Bolshevik and outspoken opponent of Communism, said "No one has been a more consistent opponent of Communism than I have for the last twenty-five years. I will unsay no words that I've spoken about it. But all this fades away before the spectacle which is now unfolding . . . We have but one aim and one single irrevocable purpose. We are resolved to destroy Hitler and every vestige of the Nazi regime. From this nothing will turn us. Nothing . . . Any man or State who fights against Nazism will have our aid. Any man or State who marches with Hitler is our foe . . . It follows, therefore, that we shall give whatever help we can to Russia and to the Russian people. We shall appeal to all our friends and Allies in every part of the world to take the same course and pursue it as we shall, faithfully and steadfastly to the end." In Moscow on July 12th, 1941, the British and the Soviets signed an official Mutual Assistance Pact. This poster was intended to help boost British morale about the decision to aid the Soviet Union.
